Make A Wish
by Lampito
Summary: Yep, just make a wish. Think of something you want, and wish for it. It's that simple. Seriously, how difficult could it be? A one-shot.


I bought myself a teeny tiny 5L mini fridge for my office - when I opened it this morning, this little plot bunny jumped out and sank its teeth into my leg. (I think her name is Jeannie.)

 **Make A Wish**

Dean was ratting through the boxes of junk – for Dean Winchester to decide that stuff was 'junk' it had to be pretty damned decrepit, but what he was searching through was definitely junk – and muttering dire imprecations about the gods, the Fates, and most of all his baby brother, who had set him to the task of finding a particular artefact that 'looks like a kind of cylinder that could be made of metal or not with a bit that sticks out at the end, maybe'.

Yeah, real specific there, Gigantor.

Three quarters of the way through the second box he thought he might've hit pay dirt, but when he extracted the object, it turned out to be an elderly flashlight. Dean examined it thoughtfully; it was of a robust metal design, a lot more sturdy than the plastic crap that seemed to be all that was ever available these days, and it didn't look to badly damaged, just a bit scuffed, maybe, and he was pretty sure he could get it working again. Pulling the end of his overshirt over his hand, he wiped at the glass to see if it was cracked.

As he did so, the flashlight played a strange, tinny fanfare, and what sounded like a scratchy recording addressed him.

 _Thank you for calling Genies Inc. All our customer care consultants are busy at the moment, but your summons is important to us, so please wait and one of our operatives will be with you as soon as possible._

There was another burst of tinny music – it could've been 'Fur Elise' or 'Music Box Dancer', but the rendition had apparently been played on a defective 1970s synthesiser – then suddenly, there was a flash of light and a swirl of dense vapour issuing from the flashlight.

"Greetings, mortal."

When he had stopped coughing and waving at the smoke to clear the air, Dean looked up to see that he was being addressed by a guy who was about eight feet tall, blue, had no legs, and was apparently floating in the air.

"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded.

"I am Grongleflergah, customer care consultant with Genies Inc.," replied the being, bobbing gently in mid-air. "How may I help you today?"

Dean blinked up at him. "Uh, you're a genie?"

"That is correct," replied Grongleflergah.

"You, uh," Dean waved the item in his hand, "You came outta the flashlight."

"Indeed," the genie didn't stop smiling. "You are an observant one."

Dean looked thoughtful. "Uh, look I don't mean to be rude, but don't genies live in, you know, lamps?"

"Oh, not anymore," laughed the genie, "Lamps? That's so last millennium!"

"It is?" Dean didn't sound convinced.

"Oh yes," the genie waved a large hand dismissively, "Times change, don't they? Technology moves on. You don't keep your food cold in an icebox any more, do you? You don't get around driving a horse and buggy? Witches don't ride broomsticks any more. – you might get one or two that have club registration, but mostly they're hobbyist experts; your average working witch commutes on a vacuum cleaner. I know a young lady who's done the most amazing aftermarket work on an eight-vortex bagless job, it growls like a horny tiger…"

"Oh, er, right, right." Dean peered at the flashlight. "I, uh, I didn't know you were in there. Sorry."

"Oh, it's quite all right," Grongleflergah dismissed his concerns, "A lot of people stumble across our service by accident. So," he clapped his hands together in a brisk and businesslike fashion, "It'll be the wish thing, yes?"

Dean brightened up. "You grant wishes?"

"Oh yes, it's what we do best!" Grongleflergah smiled widely, showing a set of teeth that would've done credit to a supermodel or a Clydesdale. You summon the genie, I grant you a wish - your heart's desire in the mortal realm."

"Awesome!" Dean smiled as widely (but perhaps not in so equine a fashion) as the genie. Then his face become confused. "Hey, don't I get three wishes?"

"Not any more," Grongleflergah looked regretful, and drifted downwards until he was sitting on a dusty crate. "The genieing business is all professional and corporatized now, you see. It's been rationalised, harmonised, globalised, and a whole bunch of other words ending with 'ised'." He looked glum. "We even have a Mission Statement, and a Vision Statement. And the new corporate business model says one wish per client."

"Wow," Dean marvelled, "Corporate assholery. It really does get everywhere. So, I got one wish, I gotta make it for something real good."

"Take your time," Grongleflergah advised, "Don't rush. And we'll discuss the wording before you finalise your wish; believe me, you want to get this right, the stories about the guy who asked for 'a little head' and 'a twelve inch pianist' are completely true."

Dean was just musing on what he might ask for – "What about a fifth of Jack that never empties? Or a fuel card that lasts forever? Oh, hey, what about a cut-and-come-again apple and blueberry pie, where you keep cutting slices but the dish never runs out of more pie…" – when Sam came looking for him.

"Hey, Dean, have you had any luck with finding that…" he stopped dead, and gawped at the genie. "What the hell's that?"

"Who, Sam, who the hell is that," Dean corrected his brother. "This is Grongleflergah the genie. Grong, this is my brother, Sam." The genie performed a salaam.

"What's a genie doing here?" Sam wanted to know.

"He was in the flashlight," Dean waved it by way of demonstration, "And now, he's here to grant me a wish!"

"A wish?" Sam blinked in bemusement.

"A wish!" echoed Dean, smiling, "I'm just trying to think of what to wish for – endless booze, endless gas, or endless pie…"

"Jesus, Dean!" Sam snapped in irritation, "You have a being here who is willing to grant you a wish, any wish, and all you can think of is your car, your stomach, or your liver? Do you have any idea just what you could achieve?" He turned to the genie. "What are the terms of the wish to be granted?" he asked.

Grongleflergah looked at Dean. "You didn't say he was a lawyer," his voice held a mild reproach. "But I can grant your heart's desire within the mortal realm. That means, I can grant you an earthly wish, here in your reality, on your planet, but I couldn't, for instance, get you a pet unicorn."

"Hold that thought." Sam disappeared briefly, then reappeared with what proved to be a battered atlas. "Here," he opened the dog-eared book to show the geography of the Middle East. "This region of the world? He's going to wish for the fighting to stop."

"No I'm not!" protested Dean.

"Yes you are!" snapped Sam, "You have an amazing opportunity here to do something really big and really important for the whole world!" He turned back to the genie. "The various countries and self-declared interest groups have been in various states of conflict for decades. It's religion, or it's politics, or it's who can live where – it's destroying lives in the millions. And Dean is going to wish for it to stop, for all these countries to make a lasting peace with each other, and just get along, more or less, being civil to each other." He turned pleading eyes on his big brother. "Think of how many lives that would save," he said quietly.

Dean let out a deep sigh. "Yeah, you're right," he agreed, "Okay, Grong, that's my wish. I wish for peace and prosperity in the Middle East. Make it so, Number One."

"Whoa, back up there," the genie held up his hands, "I can't do that."

"Why not?" demanded Sam. "It's in the mortal realm."

"Well, yes," Grongleflergah conceded, "But what you're wishing for there, it's what we call a compound wish."

"What's a compound wish?" asked Dean.

"Well, look at the scale of the problem," the genie went on, "To tackle this, I'd need to call in other consultants. I'd need a genie who is fluent in Hebrew, and one who's fluent in a number of dialects of Arabic, and one who speaks Farsi, then I'd need a consult from a genie with expertise in international law, and one with a background in geopolitics, and then to make this work, we'd really need to get in an uninvolved party, say, a German genie, and the Israeli genie would probably be happier if I could get an American genie to participate, then I'll probably need some help from a couple of ifrits to get the worst of the terrorists to come to heel and actually sit down and listen…" he smiled ruefully as Sam's face fell. "I'm sorry, Sam, I can see that you're really keen to use this wish to do something good and selfless, but I'm afraid it's beyond my capacity."

"Something selfless, huh?" mused Dean. "Okay, Grong, I got a simple, straightforward wish for ya – I wish Sam would agree to take himself out tonight and get laid."

"WHAT?

"In a classy hotel."

"DEAN!"

"By twins."

" _JERK!"_

"Yeah," Dean looked pretty please with himself, "That's my wish."

Grongleflergah looked hard at Sam. Then he held out his hand.

"So, let me have a look at this map again…"


End file.
